Apparatus and methods for centralized message exchange in a user premises device

• US 10,404,758 B2
• Filed: 02/26/2016
• Issued: 09/03/2019
• Est. Priority Date: 02/26/2016
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Time Warner Cable Enterprises LLC (Charter Communications Incorporated)
• Original Assignee: Time Warner Cable Enterprises LLC (Charter Communications Incorporated)
• Inventors: Straub, Albert, Chen, John
• Primary Examiner(s): Lazaro, David R
• Application Number:
  US15/055,205
• Publication Number:
  US 20170251026A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,285 Days
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/102 Gateways arrangements for connecting between networks having differing types of switching systems, e.g. gateways, H04L12/66
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/1066 Session management
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/4061 Push-to services, e.g. push-to-talk or push-to-video
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/611 for multicast or broadcast systems for broadcast or conference H04L12/18; arrangements for broadcast or distribution combined with broadcast H04H20/00; arrangements for broadcast applications with a direct linkage to broadcast information or to broadcast space-time H04H60/00; selective distribution of broadcast services, e.g. multimedia broadcast multicast service [MBMS], H04W4/06
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/612 for unicast
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/01 Protocols
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/02 based on web technology, e.g. hypertext transfer protocol [HTTP]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/12 specially adapted for proprietary or special-purpose networking environments, e.g. medical networks, sensor networks, networks in vehicles or remote metering networks
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/145 avoiding end of session, e.g. keep-alive, heartbeats, resumption message or wake-up for inactive or interrupted session
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/289 Intermediate processing functionally located close to the data consumer application, e.g. in same machine, in same home or in same sub-network
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/568 Storing data temporarily at an intermediate stage, e.g. caching

Abstract

Methods and apparatus for providing a messaging server within a premises device e.g., a home or enterprise gateway device. In one embodiment, a system is described that includes a premises device that acts as a centralized client messaging platform providing messaging services between a content provider and client devices, and also between client devices within a premises network. The premises device enables client-to-client communication that bypasses the long trip and propagation delay over the Internet by connecting the message across the premises network within the home or building. The premises device enables messages to be communicated between a content provider outside the premises network and the client devices via a single connection to minimize the number of Internet connections that need to be opened, and the number of messages communicated with servers outside of the premises network via both upstream aggregation and downstream dis-aggregation, which collectively save both network bandwidth and device reaction time.

Claims

1. A computerized premises gateway device for managing upstream communications between computerized client devices of a premises network and a service provider, the computerized premises gateway device comprising:

a first data interface apparatus configured to receive first data from a first computerized client device of the premises network;

a second data interface apparatus configured to receive second data from a second computerized client device of the premises network;

a third data interface apparatus configured to communicate third data to a computerized device of the service provider; and

a processor apparatus in data communication with the first, second and third data interface apparatus and configured to execute at least one computer program that, when executed by the processor apparatus, causes the computerized premises gateway device to;

receive respective private network addresses of the first and second computerized client devices;

utilize the respective private network addresses to register the first and second computerized client devices with one or more computerized messaging server processes of the computerized premises device;

receive the first data from the first computerized client device via the first data interface apparatus;

receive the second data from the second computerized client device via the second data interface apparatus;

generate a single message based at least in part on the first data and the second data; and

communicate the single message to the computerized device of the service provider via the third data interface apparatus.

2. The computerized premises gateway device of claim 1, wherein the generated single message comprises:

(i) information identifying the first computerized client device and the second computerized client device, and (ii) status data relating to a network function common to both the first and second computerized client devices.

3. The computerized premises gateway device of claim 1, wherein each of the first data and the second data comprises an application layer keep-alive message for maintaining a respective streaming connection, and the single message comprises a transport or network layer keep-alive message.

4. The computerized premises gateway device of claim 3, wherein the generated single message comprises information identifying the streaming connections associated with the first computerized client device and the second computerized client device.

5. The computerized premises gateway device of claim 1, wherein each of the first data and the second data comprises a request to subscribe to publish-subscribe content provided by the service provider.

6. The computerized premises gateway device of claim 5, wherein the at least one computer program is further configured to, when executed by the processor apparatus, cause the computerized premises gateway device to update one or more records associated with the first computerized client device and the second computerized client device based on the requests to subscribe to publish-subscribe content included in the first data and the second data.

7. The computerized premises gateway device of claim 1, wherein the single message comprises a network or transport layer keep-alive message, the first data and second data are received at different times and each have different expiration times associated therewith, and at least the communication of the single message occurs at a time before each of the expiration times.

8. The computerized premises gateway device of claim 1, wherein the respective private network addresses of the first and second computerized client devices comprise (Request for Comment) RFC-1918 Internet Protocol Version 4 (IPv4) addresses.

9. The computerized premises gateway device of claim 1, wherein the respective private network addresses of the first and second computerized client devices comprise link-local Internet Protocol Version 6 (IPv6) addresses.

10. The computerized premises gateway device of claim 1, wherein the computerized premises gateway device comprises an Extensible Messaging and Presence Protocol (XMPP) and Secure Websockets (WSS) protocol-enabled gateway that is allocated a publicly routable Internet Protocol (IP) address.

11. The computerized premises gateway device of claim 10, wherein the at least one computer program, when executed by the processor apparatus, causes the computerized premises gateway device to further:

utilize the publicly routable IP address of the computerized premises gateway device to register the first and second computerized client devices with at least a content provider for one or more specific publish-subscribe broadcast messages; and

distribute the one or more specific publish-subscribe broadcast messages to the first and second computerized client devices using the respective private network addresses thereof.

12. Computer readable apparatus comprising a non-transitory storage medium, the non-transitory medium comprising at least one computer program having a plurality of instructions, the plurality of instructions configured to, when executed on a processing apparatus:

receive, at a computerized premises device, respective private network addresses of the first and second computerized client devices;

utilize a publicly routable Internet Protocol (IP) address of the computerized premises device to register the first and second computerized client devices with at least a content provider for one or more specific publish-subscribe broadcast messages;

receive, at the computerized premises device, first data from a first computerized client device of a premises network;

receive second data from a second computerized client device of the premises network;

generate a single message based at least in part on the first data and the second data;

transmit the single message upstream for receipt by a content server apparatus of the content provider; and

distribute the one or more specific publish-subscribe broadcast messages to the first and second computerized client devices using the respective private network addresses thereof.

13. The computer readable apparatus of claim 12, wherein the plurality of instructions are further configured to, when executed on the processing apparatus:

receive respective private network addresses of the first and second computerized client devices, the respective private network addresses comprising (Request for Comment) RFC-1918 Internet Protocol Version 4 (IPv4) addresses; and

utilize the respective private network addresses to register the first and second computerized client devices with one or more computerized messaging server processes of the computerized premises device.

14. The computer readable apparatus of claim 13, wherein the one or more computerized messaging server processes of the computerized premises device are configured to:

utilize a publicly routable IP address of the computerized premises device to register the first and second computerized client devices with at least the content provider for one or more specific publish-subscribe broadcast messages; and

distribute the one or more specific publish-subscribe broadcast messages to the first and second computerized client devices using the respective private network addresses thereof.

15. The computer readable apparatus of claim 12, wherein the computerized premises device comprises an Extensible Messaging and Presence Protocol (XMPP) and Secure Web sockets (WSS) protocol-enabled gateway.

16. The computer readable apparatus of claim 15, wherein the computerized premises device is allocated a publicly routable IP address, and comprises a network address translator (NAT) function configured to provide Internet connectivity to the first and second computerized client devices.

17. The computer readable apparatus of claim 12, wherein the single message comprises a heartbeat message indicative that (i) the computerized premises device is ready to receive data, and (ii) that a dedicated connection between the computerized premises device and each of the first and second computerized client devices should be preserved.

18. The computer readable apparatus of claim 12, wherein the plurality of instructions are further configured to, when executed on the processing apparatus:

perform a network address translator (NAT) function which provides Internet connectivity to the first and second computerized client devices, and provides network address translation to incoming/outgoing traffic Open Systems Interconnection (OSI) layer 3 traffic.

19. A computerized method of operating a premises network having a plurality of computerized client devices associated therewith, the computerized method comprising:

registering, at a computerized premises device, both a first computerized client device of the premises network and a second computerized client device of the premises network, the registering comprising utilizing respective private network addresses of the first and second computerized client devices to register the first and second computerized client devices with one or more messaging server processes of the computerized premises device;

receiving, at the computerized premises device, first data from the first computerized client device of the premises network;

receiving second data from the second computerized client device of the premises network;

generating an aggregated status message based at least in part on the first data and the second data; and

transmitting the aggregated status message upstream to a computerized process of a content delivery network via at least one node of the content delivery network;

wherein the generation and transmission cooperate to reduce at least one of (i) bandwidth consumption between at least the computerized premises device and the at least one node, and/or (ii) communications latency, as compared to generation and transmission of separate status messages.

20. The computerized method of claim 19, wherein:

the first data has an expiry time period associated therewith;

the generation and transmission are delayed for a period of time based on the expiry time period so as to aggregate any other data (i) received within the period of time from other computerized client devices and (ii) which will not expire during the period of time, so as to enable transmission of a common keep-alive message; and

the other data comprises the second data.

21. The computerized method of claim 19, wherein the generated aggregated status message associating (i) a first client device identifier of the first computerized client device to a first connection identifier, and (ii) a second client device identifier of the second computerized client to a second connection identifier, the associating identifying streaming connections associated with the first computerized client device and the second computerized client device.

22. The computerized method of claim 19, wherein the registering comprises registering the first and second computerized client devices with a client device capabilities data structure, and the computerized method further comprises:

utilizing the client device capabilities data structure to access capabilities profile data, the capabilities profile data indicating at least the one or more common capabilities between the first and second computerized client devices; and

based at least in part on the generated capabilities profile data, delivering a digital media stream comprising digitally rendered content to the first and second computerized client devices in a media encoding format which is compatible with the one or more common capabilities.